For my birthday (same as Billy Joel’s, BTW), I’ve decided to highlight the traits of others I admire and aspire to be like.

Dan, your decision to change what you don’t like about yourself and then commit to helping others every day of your life (in 300 words or less) is beyond rising from the dead. It’s Phoenix born from the ashes kind of stuff (I’m such a poet).

Thank you for your service to me and others. You have most definitely changed more lives for the better than you will ever know.

Passion in execution comes from shared values, purpose, difficulty, and striving together to accomplish the vision in a series of campaigns.

Values can’t be taught to adults – they come from within and from aligned worldviews. Leaders need to ensure value alignment by “getting the right people on the bus”, to paraphrase Jim Collins. Those people need to believe in the purpose, and have the skills to achieve it – but even more so, the desire to persist enough to weather storms – together.

People who don’t “belong on the bus” need to be removed from the action, with love. Activities that don’t contribute strongly to the purpose need to be weeded out.

Developing, communicating, and executing an actionable vision requires 1) Dissatisfaction with the present 2) A vision of the future that is sufficiently better than the present to warrant the risk and effort to achieve it, and to focus the teams’ concentration on the common purpose rather than their own varied purposes 3) Relinquishing the present 4)Charting the path as a series of milestones, with careful planning for each step, and celebrations of small victories without becoming complacent 5)Planning for and dealing with fear, apathy, and resistance 6) Encouraging the heart without end, and making mid-course corrections constantly 7) Anchoring change in training and habit before declaring victory 8) Using victory as a stepping stone to further successes, rather than a start of a complacent period.

Passion is increased when the vision is barely achievable, but worth the effort: witness the zeal and burning bright eyes during Stanley Cup playoffs in hockey, or the work by the Jews under Nehemiah who built the wall around Jerusalem in 52 days while under constant threat of attack, and didn’t even stop to take baths!

Passion is decreased or extinguished by misaligned values, having the wrong people, having no vision, caring about personal position or prestige rather than organizational purpose, having too many resources, becoming complacent.

The leaders’ role is clear – get the right thing done, with the right people, in the right amount of time, and don’t take credit for having done anything beyond our duty. We are stewards of what is entrusted to us.

This one sticks out the most for me right now as I’ve seen this quite often on the internet:

‘Passionate leaders are deadly when they pressure people to be something they aren’t.’

Now, I understand passionate people …period… can be annoying to some people. And that’s not what you are saying here. It’s when someone’s passion is projected outward to the rest as a MUST BE everyone else’s passion too.

As if what other people are doing or not doing is completely IRRELEVANT, meaningless, and trivial unless people have jumped on to the passionate persons bandwagon, venture, idea, company, committee, etc.

Examples:

I feel passionate about doing EXTREME things…like climbing Mt. Everest! I’ve made a decision! I’m going to climb Mt. Everest and if YOU don’t climb Mt. EVerest too, you’re a LOSER! Nobody! Not going ANYWHERE! Basically…you’re not as GREAT as I am! : )

It’s the same with certain professions. Maybe someone isn’t interested in BEING that particular profession. Or perhaps, just MAYBE….the market is completely saturated with that profession and it’s no longer of interest.

Regardless, I can’t help but laugh sometimes. Really?

Anyway, as for passions, I’m still seeing the tennis ball is LOVE! (grins)

Passion is both personal and professional–both energy and vision. It’s reason for all we do and for all we are willing to endure. And, passion seems to be the common quality of success.

At the same time, the lack of passion is also cause for what depletes persons of their belief in themselves and in their future. It causes both personal and professional anxiety and depression…when persons are living in their past or in the future, but not in the present.

The solution is always in the problem. However, the old passion will not be the same as the new passion. The question is not where a person is, rather how far a person has come…why and how. Not what vision or passion got her or him to where they are, but there’s proof there is a tomorrow–for each night they go bed and they awake each morning to a new day.

So, why not dream? Why not dream BIG? And why not make their dreams come true?

another angle. shared purpose = need + passion + ability. the leader’s job is to define the purpose, based on a true market need, ensure she is joined by those who will have the passion & ability to share the purpose & fullfill the need. passion by itself doesn’t cut it. in my youth i wanted to be a mick jagger kind of rock singer. the passion was there – unfortunately i am tone-deaf, so the ability was not. & on reflection, i am not sure if the world needed another mick jagger.

You nailed it with your quintessential list of who passions die, particularly with “Belittled” and “False Humility.” Leaders absolutely annihilate passion in their peers and followers when they dump cold water on new ideas.